Chinese LED Fab Industry Overview

Chinese LED Fab Industry Overview

By Daniel Qi, SEMI China

The LED industry started in 1970’s in China. In the early stages, China imported LED chips because there were no wafer and chip fabs in the Chinese mainland, which was primarily focused on packaging and the back-end for many years. After 30 years of development, China has achieved its goal of having the integrated chain of wafer and chip, packaging and back-end applications.

Chinese Mainland LED Industry is Booming

In 2003, the Chinese government launched the "National Semiconductor Lighting Project," with Shenzhen, Shanghai, Dalian, Nanchang, Xiamen, Yangzhou and Shijiazhuang as national semiconductor lighting industrial bases in the project. The Chinese mainland LED industry has boosted the growth of semiconductor illumination and lighting markets due to specific policies that support these markets. On the China mainland, there are now over 1,000 LED packaging plants and 2,000 LED application system plants and 68 wafer and chip Fabs (Including On-construction and planned).

In 2009, the gross product value of China LED chips was 2.3 billion RMB which increased 21 percent compared with 2008. The gross product value of LED packaging was 20.3 billion RMB in 2009, an increased of 10 percent over 2008 (Fig.2) even in the serious economy crisis.

Chinese LED Wafer and Chip Fab Plants Characteristics

Up until August 2010, based on SEMI statistics, there were 68 LED wafer and chip fab companies in the Chinese mainland, including 45 companies that are in production or in pilot run stage. Over 85 percent of the companies relate to GaN-based wafers and chips. Meanwhile, there are another 19 new wafer or chip manufacturers which are currently being constructed, 18 of constructing LED fabs which will cover both epitaxial wafer and chip fab. In total, it means that 48 LED fabs which engage in epitaxial wafer process exist in the Chinese mainland.

New LED Fabs and Projects Descriptions

Looking at new LED wafer and chip projects on the mainland, many of the largest investments are from outside of the mainland. We believe that thee LED wafer and chip Fabs in the mainland will be improved and changed remarkably in the next 3 to 5 years.

Table.1 Partial New Plants (Projects) of LED Wafer and Chips Fab in China

2010 Chinese LED Fab Industry IRS Report

SEMI China IRS team will publish the “2010 Chinese LED Fab Industry IRS Report” in coming November In this report, we describe: the LED industry players in the Chinese mainland; trends in LED industry development; supporting plans and policies of central government and local governments; construction plans for new LED Fab plants, MOCVD installation quantities, and new MOCVD planning, in addition to statistics about GaN wafer capacity and forecast and more. For more detailed information, please feel free to contact the SEMI China IRS team: